Softbank’s Son gives ¥10 billion to victims

Softbank Corp. announced Sunday that President Masayoshi Son will personally donate ¥10 billion to support victims of the March 11 earthquake and help fund the recovery of the quake-hit Tohoku region.

Son will also donate all his earnings until retirement to support orphans, including those who lost their parents in the earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing, the company said. Softbank Corp. is the holding company of the Softbank Group, whose core business is cell phone services.

Softbank has already decided to donate ¥1 billion to assist the Japanese Red Cross Society and other volunteer groups helping to pay the medium- and long-term living and education costs of orphans, the company said in a statement.

¥115 billion donated KYODO The Japanese Red Cross Society and the Central Community Chest of Japan said Sunday that they have jointly collected ¥115.4 billion for victims of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Committees to be set up by prefectural governments will likely decide how to share and distribute the money, which was tallied on Saturday.

However, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshihiro Katayama said on an NHK news program Sunday that the government would also like a say in the matter.

“Although it is not the duty of the central government to decide how to distribute the funds, we would like to devise some sort of guidelines to enable speedy distribution,” Katayama said.